Expressions in Dialogue / International Projects / Refugees

Refugee inclusion through Living Libraries

As part of the Strategic Partnership Expressions in Dialogue project an Innovation Development Meeting: "Youth work practices on refugee inclusion through Living Libraries" was implemented.

From the 29th of September to the 5th October 2019, the Innovation Development meeting took place in Coma-Ruga (Tarragona) hosted by the Association of Educators in Human Rights - AHEAD.

The main aim of the five days training activity was to exchange the practices tested in the Living Library events in each country, drawing up learned lessons and extracting elements for the revision of the intellectual outputs created so far and the dissemination and follow up of the strategic partnership.

The "Youth work practices on refugee inclusion through Living Libraries" brought together a group of 20 practitioners and young migrants and refugees representatives of the local Expressions in Dialogue Local Coordination groups supported by each partner organisation.

The Partners:
  • MTÜ Trajectorya (Estonia) - The coordinating organisation
  • Young Effect Association (Italy) 

  • AHEAD – Association of Human Rights Educators (Catalonia) 

  • House of Europe in Rhodes (Greece) 

  • The European umbrella organisation VYRE – Voices of Young refugees
  • We Organisation (The Netherlands)
  • ArteWeda (Poland)

The majority, but not all participants, had participated in the first Training activity in Tallinn, few could not attend due to professional, family or documents circumstances. However all participants in this second event were members of the local coordination teams and had been directly involved in the implementation of the local Multiplier events (Living Library actions).
The meeting in Catalonia was though for people who were actively involved in the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the local Living Library event(s) in each partner-country. Each team of 4 people was composed by a balanced group of youth migrants and refugees as well as representatives of the hosting communities. They were as well representing diverse actors of the Living-Library-teams: Human Books, Facilitators, Librarians, Readers and Coordinators to join the meeting.

The Objectives of the Meeting
  • To exchange practices, raise awareness and develop competences in key concepts of social inclusion in youth work thorough the use of Human Rights Education and Living Library methodologies and implement approaches and activities that support the role of youth work in this area;
  • To revisit and develop innovative youth work methodologies and practices, including guidelines, methodological approaches and activity proposals, thus supporting the inclusion of young migrants and refugees in the social net of the hosting communities through Living Libraries;
  • To increase the quality and develop strategies of cooperation within the Erasmus + Youth in Action programme creating synergies and establish networks of cooperation between youth organisations and local stakeholders to support inclusion and intercultural dialogue.
Results of the meeting

After the implementation of the Living Libraries, the representatives of all the teams got together to share their experience, challenges, solutions and talk about the process of preparation, implementation and evaluation of their local events, from perspective of the inclusion of refugees and migrants, who were involved as participants in all the roles within this process.

The work of the local groups depended a lot on each context, but there were common conclusions and reflections to extract for organisers of Living Library with such specific focus . The participants of the meeting elaborated some recommendations for the youth work practitioners who would like to implement Living Library with migrants and refugees in order to ensure the inclusive process. The group as well discussed the strategies of how to work with stakeholders more efficiently, how to make impact on community level and how to disseminate the results of their local actions.

Moreover most of the partners are willing to continue their work in their communities organising Living Libraries and continue with the prepared catalogue of Human Books, facilitators and librarians. Some follow-up ideas popped-up, as well with the opportunity to apply to Erasmus+ program further on.

More information about the project Expressions in Dialogue

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